


Teaching

by ca_te



Category: Death Note
Genre: Angst, M/M, Romance, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-06
Updated: 2010-09-06
Packaged: 2017-10-11 12:38:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/112487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ca_te/pseuds/ca_te
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Back at Wammy's, what Matt and Mello taught to each other</p>
            </blockquote>





	Teaching

**Author's Note:**

> Written on 23rd July 2009. Thanks to Jenwryn for the beta.

Oh love don't let me go  
Won't you take me where the streetlights glow  
I could hear it coming  
Like a serenade of sound  
Now my feet won't touch the ground

[Life in technicolor-Coldplay]

 

His mother taught him how to pray. She used to kneel down at his side, and Mihael would repeat the words as she said them. Her voice was the voice of a normal woman. But her heart was ill. Mihael pretended he didn't understand what the doctor said. Many times Mihael cursed his intelligence, crying in his bed at night. Because it was too hard to just smile at her seeing death lurking in her eyes.

She died on a silent night. It was December. She had taught him how to pray. And so he prayed. At her side, the silence of the night swallowing the heat of her body.

That night Mihael flew away in the cold silence of that room, in the shaking sound of words escaping lips covered with tears.

Mihael remained with his mother, after trying to hit, to bite the ones who came to pick him up.

What was left was Mello. And Mello didn't forget how to pray. Didn't forget those bony hands in front of that little breast.

He didn't cry in front of anyone. He only cried when he was alone, sitting on his bed at night, the Bible open on the mattress in front of him. Some pages became ruined because of the little drops of water shed in silence.

Mello was afraid of the silence. That was why he always talked with a loud voice, why he always shouted. Because, yes, he was a genius, but he just wasn't good enough to put his feelings aside. And silence…silence was part of what took his mother away that night.

Mello was only able to sleep with the rosary pressing against the skin of his palms. He didn't care about the other children pointing at the silver cross dangling over his chest.

The only one who didn't say anything was Matt. He didn't point, he didn't look. But he started to recognize Mello from the little sound the silver chain made.

Matt knew that there were things that a person could want to keep to himself. Matt didn't like questions, they were made to leave people naked. Matt preferred the silence. He remembered clearly all the questions teachers and psychologists had asked him in all the orphanages he had lived in. He hadn't answered or else he'd just invented. He hadn't cared if they didn't know the truth. Matt hadn't cared about losing his name.

Matt didn't want to know anything about others.

With Mello it was different, 'cause he wanted to know but he didn't ask. He didn't want to make Mello go away.

They had found each other by chance. Like two bottles, each one with its own message inside, knocking against each other in the middle of the sea.

They were different, and Matt knew that it was better not to talk too much, not to ask too much. His mother and his father had been different from each other. Matt's father used to hit Matt's mother. He had continued till he'd left them and hadn't come back.

After a while Roger had moved Matt and Mello into the same room. It wasn't easy to find someone who didn't insult Matt, and it wasn't easy to find someone who could put up with Mello.

The glass bottles, that they were, brushed closer against each other.

Their first night in the same room Mello didn't yell, didn't say anything. He wanted to pray but Matt's fingers on the buttons of the console were like little stones hitting against the windows. Mello thanked those little sounds in his mind. It was hard not to cry when alone in his room praying. He had continued to cry for years. More and more words had faded on the Bible's pages. It was fault of the silence. The silence in his room when he'd slept alone had brought back the low, soft sounds of his mother's voice as she prayed.

That was the reason why Mello didn't tell Matt to stop. He just lay there, the little cross in his palm, listening to the muffled sounds of the video game.

Mello dreamt of caresses that night.

Matt listened to Mello's breath slowing down. They didn't talk too much, but he loved to listen to Mello, to his words, to his sounds.

Matt listened to Mello's breath that night, and he looked at the silver chain shining in the darkness of their new room.

 

It was when Mello was twelve and Matt thirteen.

Mello had stopped sleeping with the rosary around his neck. He trusted Matt enough to leave it on the bedside table.

It was night, and Matt couldn't sleep. He got up and padded toward Mello's bed. Mello's sleeping face was like still water. Matt could see Mello's eyes moving behind his pale eyelids. Matt wondered what Mello could be dreaming about.

Slowly he reached for the rosary. He traced his fingers over the little cross. Matt didn't want to know to whom it had belonged before. He just wanted to imagine the chain over the warmth of Mello's skin. 'Cause Matt had never touched Mello's skin, but he knew it must be warm.

Mello kept his eyes closed, listening to Matt's movements. He imagined Matt's fingers over his rosary. He wished those fingers could brush through his hair. Mello wouldn't have admitted it but Matt was the only one who was able to radiate something so similar to the sense of family that had been around Mello's mother. That same calm warmth.

He listened to the sound of the rosary beads on the wood. He remembered the sound of his mother's dress.

Matt gasped as he felt a hand around his wrist. Mello's fingers were so white.

Outside the sky was clouded in the night.

Matt looked at Mello. His eyes seemed almost grey. Mello didn't know how to pray to a human being. He had only prayed to God. And Matt's wrist, Matt's skin were just too real.

Mello knew he was too proud to say it with words. He just pulled at Matt's thin wrist.

Matt fell on the mattress at Mello's side. He closed his eyes, sinking in the fresh smell of Mello's sheets.

Mello didn't look at Matt. He looked at the ceiling. Matt smiled at the sight of a little trembling at the corner of Mello's eye.

Mello closed his eyes as he felt Matt's fingers caressing his hair. Matt slowly brought a lock of golden strands behind Mello's ear. It looked just like a little white shell.

\- Why are you letting me touch you?

Mello let his fingers trail a shaky line along Matt's soft cheek.

Matt had seen many times the way Mello clutched the beads of his old rosary. He had seen the way Mello looked at the ruined Bible as he read it at night.

Matt didn't want to destroy what held Mello up.

Mello thought of his mother, of her azure, sad eyes. He didn't want his eyes to be like that. He let his hand sink in the softness of Matt's hair and pulled him closer.

Matt listened to the muffled sound of his ribcage's bones over Mello's. Mello's breath itched. It was like the sound of a little bird falling from its nest.

Mello was afraid of the tingling running inside his muscles, flowing in his blood.

Matt simply kissed him.

That was Matt's first kiss. That was Mello's first kiss.

Matt buried his face in Mello's hair. Mello smiled at the feeling of Matt's weight on him. It was so real, so comforting.

It defeated the silence of the night.

 

Mello never taught Matt how to pray. Matt just looked at Mello's fingers around the rosary beads. He just followed Mello's lips spelling words.

 

It was when Mello was fourteen and Matt fifteen.

Mello had learnt what it felt like to be touched by Matt's hands. They were determined and yet their touches were soft.

Matt had learnt the tenderness concealed under Mello's shouts and kicks.

Mello hadn't taught Matt how to pray, but he had taught him the secret places of his body. He had taught Matt the precision of his long, elegant fingers.

Matt had taught Mello that warmth could still exist. That maybe it was not so wrong to be touched, to get lost in that silent pleasure.

 

It was when Mello was fourteen.

He had put the Bible aside. He had learnt some pieces of it, though. He used to recite them now and then. Mostly when Matt wasn't around.

It was back then that he began to want more of Matt. And Matt just filled the emptiness that that December night had left, an emptiness that kisses and hands alone couldn't wash away.

Matt poured himself into Mello, to chase that pain, to make it sink into the warmth liquid that Matt spilled in the depths of Mello's thin body. It was Matt who wanted Mello to keep the rosary on. He knew it was wrong, and bad still…still it was part of Mello, and he wanted all of it.

And Mello learnt what addiction could do to him. What Matt could do to him.

He woke up, the day after, and Matt was still sleeping at his side. Mello let his fingers travel over the beads of the rosary.

He cried as he noticed that the contours of his mother's face were finally fading in the steady rhythm of Matt's breath.

In the soft brushing of Matt's hair over his cheek Mello realized that a life was still possible.


End file.
